As computer systems and networked computer systems proliferate, information access time becomes more critical. For many reasons, access time to information databases has a tendency to increase even with frequent equipment upgrades and technology advances. This tendency is apparent in mostly all database accesses which involve telecommunications links and is especially visible to the growing number of users of the Internet and worldwide web applications especially where extensive graphics are implemented.
In the internet or "worldwide web" network, a user is able to designate an address of a site or target page where the user desires to "go". The user then enters the selected site and the target page or site home page will be displayed on the user's display screen. In general, target pages with a great deal of graphics content, or even very large text-only pages will take a relatively long period of time to download to a user's terminal. During the interim time period before the target page is displayed, many channels of the network may be "tied-up" in retrieving and forwarding the requested page and information to the user's terminal. This process is not only relatively slow for the user, but it also ties-up the network to some extent, and slows down the same process for other users of the network.
Moreover, in many cases, when the target screen is displayed, it may not present the anticipated or sought after information and the user will then have to designate another target address for access. As hereinbefore noted, when the retrieved page contains a great amount of colorful and intricate graphics or sound files for example, the retrieval process takes a relatively long period of time. This is true because of the great amount of data and parameters that are needed to specify a color graphics display or sound output compared to a textual only display. Further, this process is not only a slow process for the user to endure, but the process also slows down the entire network by unnecessarily tying-up network channels which could have been used by other network subscribers. This disadvantage in search or access protocol is even more apparent at "rush hour" times when there are many millions of subscribers using the network at the same time.
In most applications today, target pages contain "links" to other pages which are related in some respect to the target page or the subject matter of the target page. These "links" are typically observed as a grouping of a few words, which are usually descriptive of the "linked" page to which access is offered. These links are sometimes referred to as "hyperlinks" and the context in which they are presented is referred to as "hypertext". The hyperlinks are generally displayed in bold type and underscored, and may be displayed in a different color, so that a user may easily locate the links on a page which otherwise may be filled with text. A user may "go" directly to one of the displayed linked pages simply by moving a cursor device such as a mouse device to point to an active screen area in which the "hyperlink" is presented within the "hypertext" and "clicking" on a selected enter button on the mouse device.
While the link methodology helps to speed-up a search to some degree vis-a-vis keying-in a new location every time a user desires to move to a new page, the process is still relatively slow. Whenever a hyperlink is selected and "clicked" on, the entire page will be retrieved including all of the graphics and text and graphics-related parameter specification that is necessary. It should also be noted that in many network searches or "net surfing" sessions, a user may actually be distracted by this process since so many aspects other than the particular aspect sought to be explored by the user will be presented on the displayed pages. Typically the user must read through all of the text and "hypertext" including the displayed "hyperlinks" within the text, to determine which hyperlink will best suit the user's needs. In applications where there are a great many hyperlinks presented, especially where there is more than one page of content at the selected site, a user may choose a hyperlink which appears early in the presentation or on the first screen of a page site not knowing that there are more appropriate hyperlinks presented in subsequent screens or pages at the site. Thus, there is a need for an improved methodology and implementing network system which enables a more efficient search protocol and requires a reduced amount of network usage time to accomplish.